Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Extreme Home Makeover-Day 1

Our town is being overrun! The big bus showed up around 2:30 today. It actually drove right past our classrooms, so I was able to get a photographer and videographer out right away. The house they're building is only about a block from the school and a couple blocks from our house, so it will be neat seeing the progress each day. Right now our town looks like an incubator, because there are huge portable lights up everywhere they're working. I'm glad I'm not living next door right now!

The cool thing about the whole deal is that it doesn't sound like they're just going to build one house. A community center of some sorts is going to be built, and there are also going to be individual families get help who had partial damage to their house. Plus, I got my journalism kids onto the building site to follow film crews around, and I will also have my print students heading out to get photos and interviews. They're all really excited for the opportunity (of course there will be NO learning going on this week otherwise).

Photos are below and video will follow tomorrow, but if you want to see KAKE TV cover day 1, go to this website:

http://www.kake.com/home/headlines/34289254.html

If you want to see the website that tells about the project, family and schedule, go here:

http://www.rebuildchapman.com/

This is the limo they drove the family away in.

One of the design members gets interviewed. The kid on the left is one of my editors. He was pretty pumped, and we got some really good footage.

The design team (minus Ty) posed for pictures after the family left. I would let the one on the right design for me any day!

Right after this photo, Ty walked up to me and said, "Hey, aren't you the Journalism teacher at Chapman? I've heard a lot about you!" I said, "Yeah, I'm a kind of a big deal around here." We're going to lunch tomorrow. :)

Meet Matt

I just ended my 9th year of teaching high school Journalism at Chapman High School. I also finished my second year of being junior varsity boys' basketball coach after being the head girls coach for five years.